How to find the best mortgage for 2010

Will 2010 be the year that more borrowers manage to take advantage of rock bottom interest rates? We look at how to find the best mortgage for the year ahead.
Savings have been squeezed, wages have been frozen, jobs have been lost, energy bills are rising, and tax-increases loom large on the horizon.

Makes depressing reading, doesn't it? By now, we're all painfully aware of the wounds inflicted by a recession-tainted year – and that they will take some time to heal too.

But for homeowners, a glimmer of light flickers amid the gloom: rock-bottom interest rates have meant that, for some, mortgage repayments have become significantly cheaper.

Most on standard variable rates and all on tracker home loans tied to the Bank of England's 0.5% base rate have seen monthly bills shrink, shrink... and shrink some more.

Some lucky borrowers even celebrated a 0% rate in 2009 because their existing deals had promised to undercut the base rate.

Those on fixed rate mortgages have not seen rates fall, but some canny and financially secure households have used them to their advantage.

By furiously eating away at their outstanding debt, through overpaying on their mortgages instead of ploughing earnings into poor-value savings accounts, they have substantially boosted the return on their extra cash.

But the big question for homeowners, whether you are thinking of remortgaging or moving home, is: when is the right time to grab a new deal?


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